Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent progress her Department has made on replacing the use of animals with non-animal methods for antibody production; and whether her Department is taking steps to accelerate this process.

Following a review by the Animals in Science Committee in 2022 on licences for the production of antibodies, the Animals in Science Regulator implemented published changes to strengthen the requirement for robust justifications. This included an additional condition placed on all new antibody project licence applications that requires applicants to justify they have fully considered all recommendations in the report. Further actions of communicating the report, embedding changes in the Regulator and conducting Regulatory Reform that will strengthen delivery of the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) have also been implemented.

Project licence proposals for research on animals for which there is no non-animal alternative must comply fully with the 3Rs. This assures that, in every research proposal, animals are replaced with non-animal alternatives wherever possible, the number of animals are reduced to the minimum necessary to achieve the result sought, and that, for those animals which must be used, procedures are refined as much as possible to minimise their suffering.

The Government is committed to supporting the uptake and development of alternative methods to the use of animals in science. This is achieved through UK Research and Innovation who fund the National Centre for the 3Rs and research into the development of alternatives through Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

The Labour Manifesto includes a commitment to “partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing”. The Government will publish a strategy to support accelerating the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods in basic, applied, translational and regulatory research and testing later this year.